Three acronyms have landed on small business owners in the space of about a year, SEO, AEO, and GEO. They're related, but they're not the same thing, and getting found today increasingly means paying attention to all three.
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation
The original discipline. SEO is about ranking your website in Google's list of results, and in the local pack, the map-based block of results that appears for local searches. It's driven by relevance, trust signals like reviews, and technical foundations like page speed and mobile-friendliness.
This is still where most small businesses get the majority of their search traffic, and it's the foundation the other two build on. We saw this directly with Mark Thompson (Leeds) Ltd, a heating, plumbing, gas and air conditioning business, whose old site generated zero leads. After a rebuild with SEO fundamentals in place, Google Search Console showed 19,200 impressions and 160 clicks in month one, and the site now brings in around 25 jobs a month.
AEO: Answer Engine Optimisation
AEO is about being the direct answer, the featured snippet Google reads out, the response a voice assistant like Siri or Alexa gives, or the box that appears above the normal search results. Instead of getting a click, you get named directly as the answer.
This depends heavily on structuring content as clear, direct answers to specific questions, using FAQ-style content and schema markup that helps machines parse what your page is actually saying.
GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation
GEO is the newest of the three: being cited, quoted, or recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews, which generate a written answer rather than a list of links. We've covered this in depth in how to get your business found on ChatGPT, including the research finding that 97 out of 100 UK small businesses are currently invisible to it.
GEO relies less on traditional ranking signals and more on structured, machine-readable data, think schema markup, an llms.txt file, and clear, specific answers to the questions your customers are actually asking these tools.
Do They Overlap?
Partly, but less than most people assume. Research consistently finds only partial overlap between what ranks on Google's first page and what AI tools cite. A page can rank well on Google and still never get mentioned by ChatGPT, because the AI is evaluating different signals, structure and clarity over backlinks and domain authority.
Which Should You Prioritise?
SEO first, in almost every case. It still drives the most traffic, and the foundations, a properly set up Google Business Profile, genuine reviews, a fast and clear website, also underpin AEO and GEO. Our full breakdown of what to prioritise and in what order is in the best SEO strategies for small businesses.
Once those basics are solid, layering in AEO and GEO, structured FAQ content, schema markup, an llms.txt file, is a relatively small additional effort for a growing source of visibility.
We Do All Three
Our SEO service includes AEO and GEO as standard, from £85/month with a free audit. See what's included or get in touch to talk it through.
FAQs
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO (search engine optimisation) is about ranking in Google's list of results. AEO (answer engine optimisation) is about being the direct answer read out by voice assistants and featured snippets. GEO (generative engine optimisation) is about being cited or recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT that generate a written answer rather than a list of links.
Does good SEO automatically mean good AEO and GEO?
No. Independent research has found only around half overlap between what ranks well on Google and what AI tools cite in their answers. Ranking on Google remains valuable, but AEO and GEO depend more on structured, machine-readable content and clear, direct answers than on traditional ranking factors.
Should a small business prioritise SEO or AEO and GEO first?
SEO first, in almost all cases. It still drives the majority of small business search traffic, and the foundations, a fast site, a Google Business Profile, genuine reviews, clear content, also support AEO and GEO. AEO and GEO are worth adding once those basics are solid.